Lee collet die vs bushing die

[TAJ45]

It's called a grabayhickey. ..... for my wife to find; "If it matters to you, I went to the range to test some new handloads and will be back next week."

You a BRAVE man.....

 

[Hondo64d]

The reason so many reloaders use the Lee collet die is because it produces less neck runout than a bushing die in off the shelf factory chambers. I myself prefer sizing the case once with a Forster full length die with very little to no neck runout. If you think your Forster die is over working the case neck then have the neck honed by Forster.

I have several honed Forster dies and like them but have observed that they squeeze the case diameter at the shoulder significantly more than the Redding body die. Almost like a small base die.

John

 

[fyrewall]

Sorry for being cute with my application of the word "dwell"

What I should have said - a pause or dwell, while the brass is contracted, seems to help in achieving uniform neck tension. My guess is that brass spring back in various degrees will cause differences in neck tension. The pause or dwell stuff is an attempt to make neck tension uniform (3x, 15 sec./compression). After a certain time I notice that this quits working and I have to use varying degrees of force when seating bullets - like some seem to just slide in and others need a good push. At this point I need to decide to either toss brass or anneal. The frequency of brass having split necks increases with work hardening. I have noticed the diameter of brass necks are always about .001 less than the diameter of my chamber neck after firing. I have also noticed that the diameters of sized brass necks vary, about .001, after 5 cycles - I attribute this to increased work hardening that the pause or dwell stuff can't fix. I like Lee Collet dies (.204R, .22-.250, .243W. 6mm Rem, .260, .280, .308, .30-06). The 6mm Rem works for the 6mm AI. A modified .260 works for the 6.5X47 L.

My annealing attempts are sort of trial & error but occasionally produce good results. I just did annealed 100 .243's that came out great using my circular propane flame tip.

Upon reading stuff about Rockwell hardness testing I see that dwell time is a component of the test - possibly this applies to neck forming. Instead of pushing a hard pointy object into something for a certain time the something is conformed for a certain time.

I need an analysis & consultation by a metallurgist.